598 
thoroughfares and its less fashionable localities. Wherever the 
time-honoured wooden gables give place to the square roof and the 
iron gutter, the House Martin retires to less pretentious dwellings ; 
and where — so generally the ease now — chimney-pots take the 
place of the large open chimney-shaft, the Swallow deserts its long- 
accustomed haunts, or, as I remarked in several instances this 
year, builds under the eaves of the houses like the House Martin, 
fixing its nest close up to the brickwork, as it would to a cross-beam 
in a barn-roof or the rafters of a boat-house. I should scarcely 
have noticed that those were Swallows’ and not Martins’ nests had 
I not seen the old birds hovering up under the eaves, and feeding 
their young as they appeared at the tiny aperture. The early con- 
gregating of House Martins with an evidently migratory intention, 
which I recorded (‘Zool.’ 1878, p. 45) as occurring on August 16th, 
1877, was witnessed in exactly a similar manner in 187S, on the 
7th. At 7 a.m. the lofty slated roof of the chapel opposite my 
house was covered with these birds, and difficult as it was to 
ostimato their numbers, from their restlessness, I satisfactorily 
counted over two hundred, sitting in rows of thirty or forty 
together, on the roof, the stone copings, the eaves, and level ridge 
of the roof itself ; all of these swarming on the sunny side of 
the building, and occasionally flying off in large flocks and settling 
again. I was obliged to leave home at 10 a.m., but even by that 
time the main body had disappeared, and only a few, comparatively 
speaking, were seen in the neighbourhood after that date. These 
I presume are the parents and offspring, whose nests, built early in 
the season, have met with no disasters, and who thus, freed from 
the anxieties of a second hatch, annually pass southward by short 
stages, influenced only by the weather. 
November. 
Woodcocks near the City. A AVoodcock was flushed from my 
neighbour’s garden on Unthanks Eoad, on the 2nd of November, 
within live minutes’ walk of Norwich market-place. In June, 
1877, one was caXrght alive in a greenhouse on the Newmarket 
Eoad, within a mile of the city. 
Little Auks. Several of these birds were picked up in inland 
localities during the first week in the month, the wind, at times, 
